Presidents Letter: May 2019

As you read this second article, I hope you are doing well and business is running smoothly. I want to say a special “thank you” to Vincent Friederich for hosting the Past President’s Dinner at his funeral home. He provided a delicious meal for everyone. This is our 3rd year to have this event. This is a great way to provide past Presidents an avenue to have a question and answer session with the current board members. This is a time to gather knowledge from the past, discuss current issues that we need to focus on for the upcoming year, and to build relationships and comradery between current board members and past leadership. Gordon Welch, our executive director, opened the meeting with a discussion about his attendance at the Tri State conference (Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri) to get new ideas and to find new vendors to invite to our state. We also discussed new ideas from our neighbors, the Texas Association, and plan to attend their convention in June to gather new ideas for our state. In turn, they will attend our convention next year at WinStar. Vincent talked about continued tweaking of the schedule for convention fees and membership dues. There was a question and answer session held for current board members to ask past presidents for pointers on “to do” and “not to do” guidance for the association for the next year. The topics that discussed were as follows: new ideas for the 2020 Convention, the association’s role in case of a natural disaster, interactions with other agencies and detailed planning for the summer workshop. The summer workshop will be in the month of June at WinStar located at Thackerville, Oklahoma. There will be close to 100% attendance from the Board to plan strategies and focus for the next year. They will be given a preview of the facilities before the convention. I believe it will be a great workshop! I attended my first funeral board meeting at the State Capitol last month. We will continue monthly to monitor the current board business and monitor current legislation until the session closes. We will be focusing on lobbying for items that help our local funeral directors. My main goals this year are: increasing membership and the benefits of being a member in the association, legislative lobbying and monitoring of policies and bills, and pursuing limited licensing for pre-need insurance. We are here to serve the funeral directors of Oklahoma. If you are not a current member, please strongly consider joining us as we work together to improve our profession! I also want to remind everyone that you can view our publication on our website or in the magazine. We hope to have a productive year! Honored to be your President, Daren Flanagan